Guitar of the Future

[cmajor9]

So... It's a keyboard, shaped like a melted guitar. Dali would like it.

Not my cup of tea.

A Dali-tar, I like it! “The Persistence of Melody”.

[RJVB]

My classical guitar teacher detested the electric guitar. He said "Call it anything but a guitar, maybe string-o-phone."

He's not wrong for solid-body electrics. I make a point of always calling those "electric guitar" or "e-guitar"

[hotpepper01]

Interesting. Looks weird, but that was the first motorcar as well. Is there a videoclip available where somebody actually plays it live?

[pauln]

So design spec based on "all the earmarks of an eyesore"?
Catastrophic integration of looks, sound, and ergonomics?

Just imagining playing this thing anticipates all the "hyper"
prefixes of wrist extension, radial deviation, and supination...

[Doctor Jeff]

No more phallic symbols.

Unless you have Peyronie’s…

[Doctor Jeff]

Allen Holdsworth shouts down from someplace on a cloud: “I love it! Send one up here!”

[whiskey02]

Years ago I actually was having nightmares sometimes of my Gibson neck becoming that... I would be playing and the neck would curve!

That is exactly what Carlos Santana "experienced" playing at Woodstock while tripping on acid. He said his guitar neck was bending back and forth like rubber.

[whiskey02]

My classical guitar teacher detested the electric guitar. He said "Call it anything but a guitar, maybe string-o-phone."

Sounds like he just wants to be thought of in the same light of Segovia, without actually being Segovia.

[YUri Dingleberry]

That is exactly what Carlos Santana "experienced" playing at Woodstock while tripping on acid. He said his guitar neck was bending back and forth like rubber.

Rubbernecking

One of my favorite things about the SG when moving in any direction while playing, is the natural Tremolo effect of the neck and notes bending… Unless I’m tripping too

but I bet that must’ve been really cool … lol

[YUri Dingleberry]

So… The forum won’t let me say what I really think… but those modern kids with their video game guitars… Well they’ve got to have a professional model I guess

[RJVB]

That is exactly what Carlos Santana "experienced" playing at Woodstock while tripping on acid. He said his guitar neck was bending back and forth like rubber.

Heh, Dutch artist (I guess you can call him that) Toby Rix had a clarinet of actual bendy rubber - which he knew how to play and a priori without psychotropic aides (there's a youtube video of him "crashing" an outdoor performance of the Willem Breuker Collectief).

[JWMandy]

My classical guitar teacher detested the electric guitar. He said "Call it anything but a guitar, maybe string-o-phone."

While YMMV.... and as an ex-CG player, I don't mean to throw a self-referential flame into the woodpile, but:

"And then to be heard, classical guitarists started using pick-ups and microphones. Classical luthiers added sound ports, double tops, raised necks and cut-a-ways." So aside from a slightly different set of "athletic technique", the difference reduces to string material, the top resonance, volume of air moved, and role of amplification.... But in my experience, CG mostly involves playing music for audiences comprised mostly of other classical guitarists, and their just ain't as many of us as we might once have thought. Surely some of this has to do with CG's outsized emphasis on solo artistry and virtuosity that has the rarity of running into the long lines backing up your local barrista's ability to pour coffees fast enough for all the gold medal Olympic fencers struggling to start the day across the country.
Like me, you probably get tired of getting poked by their pointy things inadvertantly while they're elbowing and slashing their ways to the front of the line. En garde anyone? Yeah.... haven't exactly seen a lot of this.

IMHO, CG sadly seems to me just too quiet on its own to be heard in even a quartet and lacks sustain. Despite the amazing talents of the LA Guitar Quartet', "guitar orchestras" tend to drive my ears to the exits after one "tune" before it begins an inevitably downhill slide into a range that is just too narrow....completely lacking in sustain.... and needing a bass, a horn, a piano, violin, cello, flute or anything to add sustain.... and a break in what becomes.... a beautiful sameness of short notes. There's the "Gee.... I never thought they'd do Handel's Messiah in a guitar orchestra..." but who wants that? "Just because you can doesn't mean you should"? And yes, aside from the Hallelujah (It's Over!) chorus, I struggle with that anyway.... showing and showering in my ignorance.

All that said, CG is a beautiful genre on its own, but it makes jazz and electric guitars sound like music for the masses (said with an appropriate air of disdain rendered famous in M*A*S*H's reference to "Tchaikovsky.... yech!") which as frequently bitterly complained about here can otherwise seem hard to do. And yet, I love both, but jazz and the guitar potential role in it.... offers a range and capability if not common parlance of playing with a wider range of musicians... and that shoulders a potential for considerably wider appeal. Maybe it's not universal... I get that.

Maybe even I can now consider that the archtop guitar - even an archtop electric - is just a "better" guitar? Might be. Still has some of the defects, but the sustain is waaaaaaaaaaay better. Still going to pale next to a violin or a horn, but there you are. My opinion and I'm sticking to it. Flame on?

[BigDaddyLoveHandles]

What's so new? I had a cheap guitar with a curved neck